Migraines & Running

pyrusangeles wrote: »

Sometimes they're so awful I can't even lie down, the pounding is so bad. I have to sit up in the dark with a cold compress on my neck. It feels like I'm going to pop an aneurysm.

I get migraines like this, and I've had them since I was four or five years old. I get the full deal with light, motion, sound sensitivy, nausea, puking, etc. As I've gotten older it seems like more and more things trigger them and a lot of times it's the most innocuous things like certain shades of light bulbs lighting a room, or sunlight walking outside to get the mail, or a whiff of an unlit candle or something sickly sweet smelling.

pyrusangeles wrote: »

I'm on a daily preventative, and my migraines tend to stop completely when I'm calorie restricting (excellent motivation!) so I haven't had one in a month. It has been glorious.

I take a daily preventative and it reduced mine by about 25 percent but I was still dealing with migraines more than half the month. As a sort of last ditch thing since I don't have health coverage my doctor suggested I try some dietary changes and what do you know... going keto knocked the migraines and my autoimmune inflammation down quite a bit. Now I'm down to one every so often unless I get exposed to a trigger. My body is so weird and I can't explain why it's working, just that it is. *shrug*

MHarper, that’s how I feel when I have to take imitrex too. Like I didn’t get enough sleep or am slightly hungover.

I have never heard of Keto reducing headaches. The only dietary changes my Neurologist has suggested, besides avoiding triggers, is magnesium and vitamin b12. I’m going to have to read up on the Keto thing. My husband is diabetic and surely won’t mind eliminating carbs almost completely . (Yeah, right)

My only concern about Keto is, I do a lot of cardio and I’m not sure the super low carbs will support that. Once upon a time when I flirted with super high protein diets and only ate chicken breasts and broccoli every day for months, I was getting thin, lifting weights was fine, but my cardio sessions suuuuuucccccckkkkkkked. That, and sometimes when I get a headache, not a migraine but just a mild and uncomfortable headache, I eat some candy and it goes away then doesn’t turn to a migraine.

By the way, thanks for starting this thread OP. I feel very alone and frustrated sometimes about this subject and I love reading this. 💕

EmmieEatsEverything wrote: »

MHarper, that’s how I feel when I have to take imitrex too. Like I didn’t get enough sleep or am slightly hungover.

Yes! That's exactly it.

if you can run when you have a migraine ... you dont have a migraine.

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

if you can run when you have a migraine ... you dont have a migraine.

If you believe that, then you don't know much about the disease.

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

if you can run when you have a migraine ... you dont have a migraine.

Chronic migraine disease has a full spectrum of experience. Only a full-blown migraine prevents activity.

People who live with daily headaches learn to function when they have a less-than-full-blown migraine.

There's a difference between people who have migraine disease and people who can down a coke or some coffee, pop some Excedrin, and lie down for a while and be done with what they're experiencing when it happens to them every couple of months.

mbaker566 wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

if you can run when you have a migraine ... you dont have a migraine.

Chronic migraine disease has a full spectrum of experience. Only a full-blown migraine prevents activity.

People who live with daily headaches learn to function when they have a less-than-full-blown migraine.

There's a difference between people who have migraine disease and people who can down a coke or some coffee, pop some Excedrin, and lie down for a while and be done with what they're experiencing when it happens to them every couple of months.

this often what i do. often it helps. i learned it from another migraine sufferer
but only soda-coffee makes it worse. idk why.

I think there's a disconnect in discussions like these because some of us are on protocols from neurologists that include daily medications and supplements along with rescue meds and injectable preventatives and there are others involved who ... get occasional migraines and only ever use OTC remedies. I sometimes use OTC remedies on my milder days because I can only use my big guns rescue med so many days per week. So I do get that it can be effective. But if OTC is all you ever use, you don't have chronic migraine, you know what I mean?

Chronic migraine is different than occasional migraine in how it's experienced and handled. That's the only point I'm trying to make.

goodlife4ever wrote: »

Yep! I didn’t do well with imitrex or another hybrid that was supposed to have less side effects. It made me tired as if I had iron deficiency. Could barely lift my arms without feeling exhausted. My brain haze still remained.

I take Imitrex, and you've described the side effects exactly as I experience them, especially the neck and shoulder muscle weakness. Before the migraine drugs were available, though, I was prescribed codeine. If I took it soon enough, I could knock myself out and sleep it off, but I was useless until the drug wore off. If I waited too long I just threw it up. At least I can usually keep the Imitrex down even in the middle of a full-blown episode, and it actually has an impact on the headache itself (combined with caffeine and Motrin), instead of just putting me to sleep until it passes.

mbaker566 wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

mbaker566 wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

if you can run when you have a migraine ... you dont have a migraine.

Chronic migraine disease has a full spectrum of experience. Only a full-blown migraine prevents activity.

People who live with daily headaches learn to function when they have a less-than-full-blown migraine.

There's a difference between people who have migraine disease and people who can down a coke or some coffee, pop some Excedrin, and lie down for a while and be done with what they're experiencing when it happens to them every couple of months.

this often what i do. often it helps. i learned it from another migraine sufferer
but only soda-coffee makes it worse. idk why.

I think there's a disconnect in discussions like these because some of us are on protocols from neurologists that include daily medications and supplements along with rescue meds and injectable preventatives and there are others involved who ... get occasional migraines and only ever use OTC remedies. I sometimes use OTC remedies on my milder days because I can only use my big guns rescue med so many days per week. So I do get that it can be effective. But if OTC is all you ever use, you don't have chronic migraine, you know what I mean?

Chronic migraine is different than occasional migraine in how it's experienced and handled. That's the only point I'm trying to make.

i do have chronic but the severity is inconvenient most days. i do have rescue meds. there is a spectrum of migraines. there are different types of migraines.
heck, i didn't even know that's what i had until i told my dr and then tests ensued

That's pretty much what I'm saying except to differentiate between chronic and occasional migraine.

I think people who think you can't function with a migraine probably only experience occasional migraine and don't have chronic migraine disease where they experience the full spectrum of them.

I had very atypical migraines before I was diagnosed. They prodrome symptoms were seizure-like! So I get what you're saying about different types of headaches. Because after those siezure-like states, I didn't always have pain. I'd get a lot of the peripheral symptoms of migraine, but not the pain. It wasn't until after being referred to a specialist that I finally learned to understand what had been going on.

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

mbaker566 wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

mbaker566 wrote: »

GottaBurnEmAll wrote: »

callsitlikeiseeit wrote: »

if you can run when you have a migraine ... you dont have a migraine.

Chronic migraine disease has a full spectrum of experience. Only a full-blown migraine prevents activity.

People who live with daily headaches learn to function when they have a less-than-full-blown migraine.

There's a difference between people who have migraine disease and people who can down a coke or some coffee, pop some Excedrin, and lie down for a while and be done with what they're experiencing when it happens to them every couple of months.

this often what i do. often it helps. i learned it from another migraine sufferer
but only soda-coffee makes it worse. idk why.

I think there's a disconnect in discussions like these because some of us are on protocols from neurologists that include daily medications and supplements along with rescue meds and injectable preventatives and there are others involved who ... get occasional migraines and only ever use OTC remedies. I sometimes use OTC remedies on my milder days because I can only use my big guns rescue med so many days per week. So I do get that it can be effective. But if OTC is all you ever use, you don't have chronic migraine, you know what I mean?

Chronic migraine is different than occasional migraine in how it's experienced and handled. That's the only point I'm trying to make.

i do have chronic but the severity is inconvenient most days. i do have rescue meds. there is a spectrum of migraines. there are different types of migraines.
heck, i didn't even know that's what i had until i told my dr and then tests ensued

That's pretty much what I'm saying except to differentiate between chronic and occasional migraine.

I think people who think you can't function with a migraine probably only experience occasional migraine and don't have chronic migraine disease where they experience the full spectrum of them.

I had very atypical migraines before I was diagnosed. They prodrome symptoms were seizure-like! So I get what you're saying about different types of headaches. Because after those siezure-like states, I didn't always have pain. I'd get a lot of the peripheral symptoms of migraine, but not the pain. It wasn't until after being referred to a specialist that I finally learned to understand what had been going on.

ah, i totally misread your post

I've tried butterbur, Co-Q 10, riboflavin, and magnesium.

Of all of those, I'm only still taking riboflavin and magnesium. Mind you, this is in addition to an SSRI, topomax, botox, aimovig compazine, and a rescue med.

For CoQ10, a water and fat-soluble form will absorb better. In general, some research suggests it may support brain health: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15728298

I don't run when full fledge migraine is happening -I wouldn't be able to! I try to run before it gets to that point -and usually helps to prevent the headache from developing into more.